Chuck versus the Secret Order
by WiderThanYou
Summary: Chuck and Sarah have moved into together and started a clandestine relationship after Chuck versus the Fat Lady. Or have they?
1. Part 1

**Chuck versus the Secret Order**

Author's Note:

AU. Diverges in the middle of the second season, after Chuck versus the Fat Lady and the whole Jill arc. Still don't own Chuck, never have, never will. Not beta'd, so all errors are my very own.

Background:

After the debacle with Jill, Chuck was ordered to move in with Sarah as part of their cover. That was four months ago and their non-cover relationship has progressed quite a bit since then. It only took a month of privacy before they crumbled, and started a real relationship. They've been romantically involved for three months.

Day 1:

It is a quiet Sunday morning, and Sarah Walker is in her real place of work, the Castle, located beneath her cover place of work, the Orange Orange, finishing up her monthly report to her boss, General Beckman.

"Finally, Agent Walker, what is the state of your relationship with the asset? Do you continue to maintain good control of him?"

"Yes, ma'am. He believes we are having an unapproved covert relationship, and he is very attached to me."

"Good. While he has been extremely useful to us in the field, there is a huge security risk associated with having him unsecured like this. We need to keep as close control of him as possible, and having him involved with you is an important piece of that. If he decided to run or go rogue, no one really knows what he could accomplish with the knowledge contained in the Intersect. I'll continue to officially disapprove of any indications that you have 'compromised' yourself with him so that it seems like you and he are allies against everyone else. If he starts thinking about making a run for it, he'll most likely talk with you about it first, as his only ally. Keep up the good work."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

"That's all then, Beckman out." The screen goes black.

She jumps when she hears the door into the Castle quietly close. She flips on a monitor and sees Chuck hurrying out of the freezer of the Orange Orange. Oh, crap. What was he doing here on a Sunday morning? What had he heard? She runs up the steps and hurries to catch him. She trots after him as he walks quickly away from the Orange Orange, calling after him, "Chuck! Wait a second! This isn't what you think."

He keeps walking. "Really? Because I can't think of too many ways to interpret that conversation."

"Chuck, wait!"

She catches up with him, but he keeps walking quickly, looking straight ahead. They walk together for a few paces before he breaks the silence.

"So it's all fake? You're just following orders?"

"I'm following orders, but they are orders I was happy to be given, Chuck. I really do like you, that's not fake."

"Really? I find it hard to believe that you'd deceive someone you really liked the way you've deceived me. I guess this is one of the reasons you have problems talking about your feelings with me. It's probably a lot harder when you don't actually have any. Was it funny to watch me fall for you? Or just pathetic? Maybe a little of both?"

"Chuck, you're a really sweet guy and I didn't want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you now. My feelings for you are real, even if I am terrible at talking about them. The only way the General would allow you to remain out of the bunker was if she felt you were more firmly attached to me. She didn't want to have another Jill-type incident putting you at risk. I volunteered for this because I wanted it, you know. They can't order me to have sex with someone, only to flirt with them. I have to agree to anything more than that."

"I won't ask you how many times you have agreed before, or if you have ever not agreed when asked. I suspect that I'll be happier not knowing the answers."

She winces at the tone of his bitter comment. He hadn't liked the few times she had had to seduce a mark, but he had never said anything that made it sound like he thought less of her for what was sometimes required by her job. He starts talking again before she can think of what to say.

"So this is for my own good? Letting me think that we might have a future together, sharing my fears and desires and dreams with you while you lied to me about everything that matters?"

"I know that conversation sounded bad, Chuck, but it's not the way you think it is."

"Really? What way was it, Sarah? When one person thinks he is in a real relationship, and the other one is just following orders, doing her job, and actively deceiving the other person into thinking that they have something together? What do you call that, precisely? Tell me, how much of what I talked with you at home about ended up in your reports?"

She looks away, but answers him. "A lot of it."

"Great. So when I am talking with Beckman or Casey, they know what I say in bed, maybe what I like to do there, what I hope for, what I fear. I can just imagine the conversations that you and Casey have in the Castle about me. I can't even imagine that vampire bitch Beckman reading about my sex life. Wow, not feeling personally violated or anything."

"Chuck, I'm really sorry. I had to put enough detail in my reports to convince her that I was doing my job. I tried to leave out the stuff that I thought was really private, that you would care about other people knowing. But the alternative was having you extracted. This was the only choice that Beckman gave me."

"Sarah, right this minute, I'm not sure that would be worse than this. I might agree with you in a day or two, but right now, I'm as hurt as I've ever been, including my parents leaving and right after the Bryce/Jill/Stanford thing."

"Is being with me that bad?"

"No, Sarah, being with you was that good. I thought I was in heaven, that I was going to be one of those lucky people who live the fairy tale, that I had found my true love after years of being alone. Now I find out that 'we' was really me being played by an expert and that I am the biggest loser in the entire damn world. God, I'm a fool. How could I ever think that you'd want to be with someone like me? It's just like the Jill thing again. If a woman has a relationship with me it's because she wants to use me for something, because clearly there is something so wrong with me that a woman wouldn't really give me the time of day." He shakes his head slowly. "I wish I knew what it was. Maybe then I could fix it somehow. I try to be a good person, but it just doesn't seem to be enough."

The self-loathing in his voice breaks her heart. "Chuck, there's nothing wrong with you, you just have a complicated life and some bad luck. You're a great guy."

He stops at the employee door for the Buy More and looks at her. "You know, except for handing me over to Fulcrum directly or shooting me yourself, I can't think of a way that you could betray me more. I can hardly believe it. I knew I was a loser, but I am really the biggest idiot in the world. It's no wonder that Casey treats me like a moron, since I am one." He shakes his head in wonder. "Wow, you must be so good at your job. How did you even manage to keep a straight face when you were alone with me? It must have been like having a serious conversation with a four year old about the Easter bunny when I was telling you that I loved you." He shakes his head. "Listen, I'm going to skip the cover kiss here, if you don't mind. You should go work on your next report or something." He turns away towards the door.

"Chuck, it's not as bad as you are making it sound."

"Sarah, that sounds like a 'little bit pregnant' argument. I'm sure we'll talk more tonight, but I don't see how being a 'little bit betrayed' is going to make me feel much better. I'm not sure when I'll ever feel better about this." He unlocks the door and walks through without looking back.

She watches him walk in, devastated by his comments. He'd only talked about them in the past tense, like they had no current relationship. He'd compared her to that bitch Jill. That was the first time he'd used the words 'cover kiss' since they'd made love for the first time. She had known he would be upset about this if he found out, but she had hoped that that wouldn't happen, and that she could explain it to him if he did find out. He's always been so understanding about the issues involved with her job, she was sure they could get past this. She'll give him some time to cool off before she tries to talk with him again. She gets in her Porsche and begins the drive back to their apartment, and thinks about what to tell him to help him cope with this, to get the situation under control. They can get through this.

Later:

She's changed into a pretty blue top that she knows he likes because of the way it matches her eyes, and is waiting for him to come home. It's cute, but not too revealing. She knows that she is going to have to be very careful about giving off seduction signals while he's in this state. She's been watching his location and checking the cameras at the Buy More all morning to make certain that he didn't do anything drastic. It looks like Chuck had been meeting with one of his Nerd Herd guys to help him with a computer he was building for himself, which explains why he was there on a Sunday before the store opened. He'd probably seen her car, and just come over to say hello. It's always the little things that trip you up. She watches them finish up as the store gets ready to open, and follows Chuck's position as he drives home with the GPS locater in the NerdHerder.

She tries to start the conversation when he comes in the door. "Hi, Chuck. I know we have a lot to talk about."

He turns and stares at her with the coldest, emptiest look in his eyes, but he doesn't say a word.

"Chuck, it sounded worse than it really is. Really. Will you let me explain this to you?" she asks, somewhat desperately. His warm brown eyes are one of her favorite things about him, and she can't stand to see them look this cold and angry. It is killing her to see him this upset, and Beckman will extract him in a heartbeat if she finds out about this.

He looks at her for another moment. "Sarah, there isn't anything that you can say to make this better. I've learned that you'll deceive me about the most intimate, important things. I knew that sex was a weapon for you, but I never thought that you'd use it against me. I thought that I knew you as a person, that I could trust you. Now I know that I never knew you, and I don't trust anything you have to say. Everything you say or have said is suspect." He closes his eyes tightly and takes a couple of uneven breaths. "I knew that Casey and General Beckman didn't have my best interests at heart, and might betray me, but I thought I could trust you. You were the only true thing in the spy world that I could hold on to. Now I know that I was just being naive, and that it's all lies. There isn't anything real to believe in and you are just like them. You could all do anything to me at any time, nothing's off the table."

"Chuck, you're wrong, you can trust me. You're in a really precarious position, and I'm trying to do the best for you that I can to keep you safe and happy. That's all that I have ever done." Why won't he see? What else could she have done? She knew he wouldn't survive in a bunker, he'd go crazy in a month underground. And she'd go crazy without him. "I promised that I wouldn't let anything happen to you, and I'm doing everything I can to keep that promise."

"No, Sarah, I can't trust you. If you had told me about this up front, that we had to deceive Beckman and Casey into thinking we had a real relationship for my safety, I would still trust you. If you had told me that you had these orders and were going to use them as cover to show me your own feelings, I'd be feeling a little insecure sometimes, but I would still trust you. I might have been wrong to do so, but I would have trusted you. But to deceive me about this, and let me think that we had something real, to hide from me that this was just another part of your job… Words fail me. I don't think that I can explain to you how betrayed and violated I feel." He smacks the couch in front of him with his hand.

She can't remember ever seeing him this angry and upset about anything. She tries to interrupt, "Chuck, I'm sorry-"

"And it's all of you, your whole culture. You all think this is an acceptable thing to do. I'm not some Fulcrum agent you need to take down. I'm not some terrorist planning to hurt innocent people. I'm on your side, I risk my life trying to do the right thing, to help people, to help my country. And you all think this is how I should be treated. Not one of you trusts me enough to tell me the truth, or to treat me as a teammate. I know that you all think that I'm weak and sentimental and incompetent, but, damn it, I'm still on your side."

He covers his eyes and rubs his temples with one hand. "I thought I had at least you on my side, too. But I'm all alone in this, and you can all do anything you want to me and there's nothing I can do. I don't have any rights or power. You can kill me, you can lock me up and make me disappear, you can trick me with a pretend girlfriend. I can't run, you're everywhere. Fulcrum is even worse than you guys, there's no one I can even appeal to for better treatment. I'm at the mercy of people who don't have any mercy."

He looks up and there are tears running down his face. "I would have done anything to be with you, sacrificed anything. Now I feel like my heart's been torn out and there's nothing left but a bleeding hole. It's like a nightmare, except I'm not going to wake up, am I?"

"Chuck, I didn't want to hurt you, but I had orders to follow. I was afraid to tell you about this, that you wouldn't be able to act well enough to sell it to Casey and General Beckman. I didn't want you to go to a bunker. It would kill you to be locked up like that. I thought this was the best thing for you. And I wanted to be with you. Really." She tries to make him believe her with the force of her words. "Please believe me. I just want you to be as safe and happy as you can be."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better? What happens when your next orders are to terminate me? I guess I won't hear about that before you carry them out either, huh?"

"Chuck, I won't shoot you." How can he think that? She loves him, she wouldn't shoot him!

"And would you say anything different if you would? I know the General would order it. I know Casey would do it. Is killing someone harder than faking a relationship with them? Why should I believe that you are any different than the other two?"

"Chuck, I love you, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Don't say that! Don't try to use that against me! I have no idea what you feel for me or what you have been ordered to say to me. Don't you dare say that to me again. It hurts me to hear it come out of your mouth."

Her eyes get moist. "Chuck, I know that I handled this badly, but I didn't have a lot of choices. I thought I was doing the best thing that I could for you, and I was happy to have a relationship with you, I'd been fighting to keep my hands off of you for more than a year before this. This way I could be with you and Beckman wouldn't say I was compromised and send me away."

She looks down at her feet. "You know some of how I grew up. It's really hard for me to be honest with people about difficult things, and opening up about how I feel is a difficult thing for me. And this goes against every bit of my training, and the rules of my job. You're right. I should have told you about the orders up front. But I was afraid that you'd say no, or that you wouldn't be able to act well enough to convince everyone else, and that Beckman would lock you up. I was just trying to protect you. To protect us." She looks back up at his face, but he's still really upset.

"You could have told me. You could have trusted me. You could have treated me like a partner or like your boyfriend or like anyone you had a shred of respect for. Instead, I'm supposed to blindly trust you, despite all the evidence that I shouldn't, despite the fact that you lie to me all the time, despite the fact that you don't trust me."

"Chuck, these last three months have been the happiest time of my life. I know you don't want to hear it, but I love you. I love living with you. I love Ellie and Devon, and being part of their lives. I never dreamed that I would ever have a chance to be this happy in my life. Beckman's orders gave me a chance to act on my feelings, but my feelings are real. I don't know how to convince you of that, but it's true. I was afraid if I didn't do this that I would lose you."

"Sarah, that all sounds great, but I have no idea of what to believe anymore… You know, even Carina told me that I shouldn't trust you, that all spies are out for themselves. And she's your colleague and your friend, not your asset. I've watched you deceive other men as easily as I tie my shoe laces. I know what I heard this morning. If you haven't actively lied to me about this, which I doubt, you've certainly deceived me by omission. How can I believe you?"

"I don't know how to convince you, Chuck. I'd do anything to protect you, and almost anything to be with you. You mean everything to me."

"Sarah, right now I don't know what I should believe or feel. This is your mission, would you be saying or doing anything different to try and salvage the situation if you didn't feel anything for me? I think it would sound just like it sounds right now. I don't think that I can handle any more of these mind games that you people play. Look, I don't think there's any point to us talking about this more right now. I just need to think for a while."

"Okay, Chuck, but I'm here when you want to talk."

He turns and walks into the second bedroom where his computer and games are, and closes the door behind him. She's never seen him this upset. She stares at the door for a while, trying to think of what she can do to calm him down and make him be reasonable about this. He'll see why she did this eventually, and it will all be okay. She almost believes herself, until she remembers the way he looked at her.

She putters around their apartment, randomly cleaning things and watching the door to Chuck's room, but he doesn't come out. She's usually the one with the temper who goes away to cool off, she's not used to him hiding from her like this. When it starts to get close to dinnertime, she makes meatballs and sauce, then boils water for spaghetti. Its something they both like, but isn't one of his special favorites, so he won't think she is trying to play him. When everything is ready, she knocks on the door and calls into him. "Chuck, dinner's ready."  
He calls back. "Thanks, but I'm not feeling very hungry. Go ahead and eat without me."

She sits down at the table, and picks at her food a little, but she's too upset to eat much, and there's no reason to pretend to have an appetite without him watching. Eventually she gets tired of pushing food around her plate, and puts the leftovers away in the fridge and cleans up after herself.

She's getting progressively more worried as the hours pass. Their situation is hard, but she's always been able to make him understand why things had to be the way they were for them, even if he didn't always like it. She's never seen him this upset about anything before though, and he's never given her the cold shoulder this long. He'll sulk a little when he's upset, but he always wants to talk out their problems, to the point of driving her insane. She tries to watch some television, but she just gets irritated by everything that's on. She changes into a comfy, deliberately non-sexy pair of pajamas and gets ready for bed. She starts cleaning the bathroom to distract herself, but finally gives up and goes to bed.

She's been reading the same page in her current book for twenty minutes when he finally comes out of his room at eleven o'clock. He comes into their bedroom and starts to change into his pajamas without saying anything to her. He dresses in front of her unselfconsciously but without making eye contact. He goes into the bathroom and brushes his teeth, then walks over to the bed, grabs his pillow, and walks towards the door. "FYI, I'll be sleeping on the couch from now on. We don't need to keep up the cover in the apartment, and I'm not comfortable with this arrangement."

She smiles at him and tries to break the tension. "Afraid that your self-control isn't up to the challenge?"

He doesn't react to her at all. "No, that's not going to be a problem," he says flatly. "I'd just prefer to be alone. I have a lot of things that I need to think about." He turns and leaves the room.

She sinks back in the bed and stares at the ceiling. Oh, no. He's not just upset. He's had all day to think about this, so this isn't just a knee-jerk reaction. He's not acting like he's angry with her, he just doesn't believe her. He's not going to fight with her because he thinks that she was just doing a job. He really thinks she's just following orders. She tries to think about this from his perspective and she starts to get even more scared.

He thinks he's been played. He thinks that he put his heart on the line, and got played. He'll hear anything she says as more of the same. He was going to shut her out completely. It'll be like the last three months haven't happened. No, it'll be worse. Three months ago he wanted her and trusted her. How can she get him back if he won't even talk with her? How can she fix this? How long can she hide this from Beckman? She thinks about their conversations today. He had been so hurt. He's right, she screwed this up. Their situation is incredibly complicated, but she should have told him. She knows how insecure he is about her, about being with any woman, and they just had the disaster with that bitch, Jill, where she played him as part of her job. Just like he thinks she has. She feels a lump forming in her stomach.

Now he thinks every bit of their relationship was just a fake, with her playing him like a mark, just like Jill did. Oh, God. He thinks that she has slept with him for three months as part of her job. That she has been Beckman's whore and that every look, touch, kiss, and moan were calculated manipulation. She knows him, and he'd never touch someone he thought was being paid to sleep with him. He'll never touch her again outside of their cover. She'll never wake up in his arms again. She starts to cry. If that's what he thinks of her, how can she ever get him back?

She eventually falls asleep, but wakes up when she hears a noise she doesn't recognize from the living room. She grabs her gun from underneath her pillow and moves silently to the door of the bedroom. She opens the door and looks out into the living room. She can see Chuck's shape on the couch, but nothing is moving. She listens but doesn't hear anything for a moment, then she hears it again. Her heart breaks again as she listens to Chuck crying like his world's ending. He has his pillow over his face, but it doesn't really hide what's going on. She thinks that he's grieving for them and for everything that he thinks he's lost or never really had. She makes herself listen to the pain she's caused but can't comfort with tears rolling silently down her face. Eventually his sobs slow down and he falls asleep. She goes back to bed and thinks about what she might do to help Chuck hurt less, but she can't think of a single thing. He thinks that she is just another woman who has betrayed him, like his mother, like Jill. She's hurt him as badly as anyone ever has in a lifetime that's already had too many betrayals in it. She's never felt more helpless about a situation.

End of Part 1.


	2. Part 2

So sorry for the horrible delay. I trashed a hard drive and lost a bunch of stuff, including this story, and it took me a while to get back into it to rewrite this after I got my computer back up again. The rest of this will be along in the next few days. We'll wallow in the angst a bit longer, then try to fix what has been broken...

Still don't own Chuck, just playing with other people's toys.

**Day 2: **

She was up for most of the night but manages to get a few hours of sleep. She wakes up at her normal time, and quickly gets ready for work. After she's dressed, she goes out and wakes up Chuck, which she does most mornings. "Chuck, it's time for you to get up and get ready for work."

He wakes up slowly and sits up. "Thank you." He stands up and heads into their room to get ready without another word.

She sighs, and goes to fix herself a light breakfast. She's finished and is cleaning up when he comes back out, showered and dressed for work. He doesn't say anything, just grabs himself a bowl and spoon and a box of one of his hyper-sweetened cereals, and heads to the table. He gets the milk from the fridge, and sits down. She silently holds up the remains of the pot of coffee that she made and he nods. She pours him a mug and sets it down beside him, then heads back to their bathroom to put on her make-up. He's finishing up when she comes back out, and she watches him as he puts his cereal away and his dishes in the dishwasher.

"Chuck, I know you're mad at me, but I need to know this. Can keep up appearances outside of the apartment? If Beckman finds out about this, she's going to want to extract you, and this will all have been for nothing."

"You're not going to tell her?"

"I told you, I did this because I wanted to, and to keep you out of the bunker. I thought about what you said yesterday and you're right, I should have told you about her orders, but I just made a stupid mistake. Keeping you safe is the most important thing to me, and letting her know about this would not be good for you."

"Thank you for that. I'm not sure about keeping up appearances. I still haven't decided if giving up these head games and the charade of a normal life might not be the best thing for me. Maybe its time to just accept my fate and ask for the bunker. It's only a matter of time until Beckman sends me there anyway. I'll let you know when I decide."

"If you want that to be your choice and not hers, you need to not make Casey suspicious today. Can you do that?"

He thinks for a moment. "Okay, I see your point. Yeah, I think I can."

"Just try to act normally, okay? I know you are upset, I won't read any true feelings into what you do for our cover, just keep up appearances for now. Treat it like a mission."

"I managed our cover before we moved in together, I can do it again, don't worry."

"You weren't this mad at me before, and I'm afraid that it is going to show."

"I said I'll do it, and I'll do it."

"Okay, I'm sorry, I don't mean to nag, but I'm worried. I don't want to come over to the Buy More tonight and find out that they have extracted you. The last time they ordered it they didn't warn me, they just took you. I don't want this to be the last time I see you."

"I'll keep it together, I promise."

"Okay, that's good enough for now. Let's get you to work." She smiles at him, but he doesn't respond, other than heading for the door. She sighs, picks up her purse, and follows him out the door. It's going to be a long day.

**Day 4: **

He was detached but completely professional for the mission they had last night. Casey could tell something was up, but Chuck just ignored his snide remarks and did the mission. He's done the minimal amount he needs for their cover outside of the apartment, and he is completely ignoring her at home. Fortunately, Ellie has had a busy week at the hospital and they haven't seen her. There's no way that she wouldn't pick up on this if they had had to eat dinner with her, and she'd make a federal case of it, with Casey listening to the whole thing through his bugs. Chuck is looking a little thinner, but otherwise he gives her no indication of how he is doing. Actually, he's not giving her any indication that he has feelings of any kind. It makes sense. When he thought they were real, he gave her everything. Now he thinks that he is just a job to her, and he's not going to give away a single personal moment. When they have to interact, he is polite, but he doesn't speak to her otherwise. He might as well be the skin-covered computer that Casey calls him. She, on the other hand, is definitely losing it. She's not sleeping, she's never hungry, and she's an emotional train wreck. It is very possible that she'll shoot the next jerk who hits on her at the Orange Orange, or at least damage him very badly.

"How are you doing, Chuck?" she asks him when they get home from work after another silent car ride together.  
"I'm fine," he says in a neutral tone.  
"I know this was a big shock, but I really think that we should talk some more about our situation."  
He gives her a bitter smile. "'Our situation.' That's a careful way to describe this. Truthfully, I don't really see much point in discussing this with you."  
"But are you doing okay? Can you keep it together?"  
"Look, this isn't the first time I've been betrayed by people I loved. I've been here before. I managed then, and I'll manage this time. I think that I'm getting better at it. Practice makes perfect." He turns and walks into the bathroom and closes the door quietly behind him.  
She just stares after him, her eyes moist. He is so far away from her. She could do anything, say anything, and none of it would penetrate the icy indifference he's wearing like armor. Anything she did would only be because he's her asset, he wouldn't believe that she felt anything for him, or that her feelings for him mattered more than her orders. They might as well be living on different planets.

**That night:**

She's awake again in her achingly empty bed, just like she's been every night this week, her mind racing. It all comes down to trust. She's lost his trust, so he won't listen to any explanation that she makes. How can she get him to believe her when she talks to him? Except for not telling him about the orders, she has been truthful with him. Well, mostly. As truthful as she could be. Pretty much. Damn it, everybody lies about something! Except for him. He's always shown her what's in his heart. And he could accept that she had secrets that she wouldn't talk about, but not that she had lied to him about something this important. She had finally passed the limit of his trust in her.

There's nothing she can say that he'll really listen to right now. How can she prove that she isn't lying about the rest of it? Truth serum? Maybe a lie detector? That's what they're for! She can let him interrogate her at the Castle and use the lie detector there. Maybe then he'll believe her again. That's it. He'd have to believe that. If he believes what she says, she can explain about this mess. She feels a little hope for the first time in days. He'll have to believe her if she passes the machine. She'll talk to him in the morning. She hugs a pillow to herself, and falls asleep hoping that tomorrow will be better. Maybe she can still fix this.

**Day 5: **

She's been awake for an hour when he starts stirring on the couch. He's started using the alarm on his phone so that she doesn't have to wake him up. She goes into the kitchen to fix herself some oatmeal, and waits for him to finish his morning routine and come in for his insanely sweet cereal. She's cleaning up after herself when he walks in and gathers his breakfast. Okay, here goes. "Chuck, I guess that right now you don't trust anything I tell you?"  
He looks over at her and nods his head. "Pretty much."  
"How about if we go talk in the Castle and you hook me up to the lie detector?"  
He looks surprised. "You'd be willing to do that?"  
"Chuck, I would do almost anything to get you back. I made a mistake in how I handled this but I did it with good intentions, and the parts between us are all real. I need for you to know that. You already know about the worst mistake that I made. I don't have anything else to hide about us." She swallows and looks down at her feet. "I can't tell you how much I miss you."  
"What can I ask you about? What are the limits?"  
"Chuck, you can ask me anything. You'll only get clear readings on yes or no questions, but I'll answer anything. You already know most of the government's secrets, so I won't worry about any classified stuff that comes up. And you deserve to know anything about my past that you want to know. You earned that when we went past the handler-asset relationship. Some of it may make me uncomfortable, but if it helps you to trust me again, it's a small price to pay."  
"You'd do that?" He's incredulous.  
"Chuck, I know that you are in a bad place right now, and that you don't trust me or anyone associated with the government, but I told you the truth. I wanted to be with you, and this has been the happiest time of my life. I don't want to hurt you; I want to protect you. I would do almost anything to get you back. I'm not comfortable talking about my past because I am embarrassed by a lot of it, but that's nothing compared to what it feels like having you hate me."  
"Wow. I'm stunned. And I don't hate you." He stares at the wall for a moment. "That's a very generous offer. Yeah, that would help me, actually. We'd have to pick a time when Casey isn't going to interrupt."  
"I checked our schedules, and he's working the early shift tomorrow, and you aren't scheduled to start until noon. We could go in when the Buy More opens, and have a couple of free hours. If you think about what you want to ask today, you should be able to get pretty far in two hours, don't you think?" she asks hopefully. This might work. He might trust her again, talk to her again, hold her again…  
He smiles at her, for the first time since Sunday. "Yeah, that should help me a lot. Thank you for offering to do this. I know how much your privacy means to you, and I realize what a sacrifice this is for you."  
"Chuck, if you would believe me again, I'd lead you on a personal tour of my worst memories, have t-shirts made of the highlights, and be glad of the chance. I miss you so much." She looks him in the face. "We stole most of your privacy when we took over your life. It's only fair that I reciprocate." She would never have met him if Bryce hadn't sent him that damned Intersect, which would have been a tragedy for her and for the country, but it would have been the best thing for him. He doesn't deserve what has happened to him, and what may yet happen to him. But now that she's had him in her life, she can't imagine how she'd live without him.


	3. Part 3

Still not owning me any Chuck. Sorry for long wait, again.

**Day 6: **

They had timed it so that they got to the Castle just as Casey started work at the Buy More. Chuck had read the manual for the lie detector shortly after he got access to the Castle, and, like all technology, seemed to absorb and understand it all without effort. He opens the unit up and inspects it, then runs a diagnostic program to check it out. She figures that he wants to make sure that it hadn't been tampered with to ensure that he would get real answers. Considering what his mental state is and the organization that he is dealing with, it's probably a reasonable precaution. She sits down in the chair and puts on the sensors without prompting while he finishes his checks. She's terrified of some of the questions he might ask her, but this might be her only chance to fix this horrible mess they're in. She takes a couple of deep breaths and tries to slow her heart rate.

"Would you mind?" He's holding up a blood sample kit.

Another precaution. He wants to make sure she hasn't taken drugs to let her mask her physical responses and fool the lie detector. It's a fair request. She takes the kit from him, extracts a blood sample and hands it to him. He takes a few drops of her blood and drops them into different tubes in a test kit and shakes the tubes. After a few minutes, he checks the colors of the different tubes against the instructions, then sets everything to one side. He stands up and checks the sensors she's put on, then walks back over to the console.

He looks over at her and raises an eyebrow in question. She nods. She's ready.

"Okay, here we go. Is your cover name Sarah Walker?"

"Yes." The screen indicates **True**.

"Was one of your previous names Jenny Burton?"

"Yes." **True**

"Answer this as 'yes', please. Was one of your previous names Morgan Grimes?"

"Yes." **False**

"Answer this as 'no', please. Were you and Bryce lovers in the past?"

"No." **False**

"Okay, I guess we are calibrated." He looks away from her and asks very quietly, "Do you think of me as a mark?"

He sounds so forlorn that it makes her want to cry. "No." **True**

She doesn't want to leave it at that. "Chuck."

He looks at her.

She tries to project her sincerity to him, to make him believe her. "Chuck, you were just a mission to me up until about five minutes after I met you. That's how soon I started to fall for you. You are still my mission, but you aren't my mark, and you have become so much more than that to me. I want you to believe that. Okay?"

He gives her a weak smile, but he sits up a little straighter and his eyes have a little more life in them.

"Okay. Did you sleep with me because Beckman ordered it?"

"Yes." **True **

"And because I wanted to," she adds.

"Did you want to do it?"

"Yes." **True**

"Did you do it to control me?"

"No." **True**

"Did you do it to protect me?"

"Yes." **True**

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes. I enjoyed it very much." **True**

"Do you respect me?"

"Yes!" **True**

"Do you love me?"

"Yes." **True**

"Are you in love with me?"

**"Yes."**** True**

"Have you fallen in love with an asset or fellow agent before?"

**"No"**** True**

"Did you love Bryce?"

"No." **True**

He looks a little surprised at that. "No?"

"No. I thought I did at the time, but, in retrospect, compared to what I feel for you, it was like a candle compared to the sun. I didn't have a lot of love in my life to compare it to back then. I liked him. I still like him, although I'm mad at him for getting you involved with the Intersect. But I don't love him now, and I didn't really love him then." She knows that he is still pretty insecure about Bryce. The wounds there are deep. As deep as the ones she's just made, maybe.

He's quiet for a minute as he takes that in. "Would you kill me?"

She swallows hard. She hadn't been expecting that question. But what if Fulcrum had him, if they were going to cut pieces off of him until he cooperated… "Maybe. Yes." **True**

He is watching her very intently. "Would you like to elaborate?"

Yeah, that hadn't sounded so good. 'I love you, but I reserve the right to kill you.' She licks her dry lips. "If you were being tortured or were in immediate danger of being tortured or killed slowly without hope of rescue, I might kill you to save you from that. Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person. Sometimes it's a mercy."

He nods slowly. "Okay, I can accept that. Will you kill me because Beckman orders it?"

She blinks then swallows again. "No." **True**

"Do you know of any current termination orders for me?"

"No." **True**

"Did you know about the previous termination order for me?"

She blinks again and sucks in a deep breath through her nose. What termination order? What does he know? What hasn't she been told? "No." **True** She holds up a hand to stop the next question. "Can I ask a question?"

He nods.

"What termination order? How do you know about it? Is it still active?"

He smiles at her. "That's three questions. In order, Graham and Beckman issued a termination order for me when the Beta Intersect was ready to go live. I would rather not tell you how I know, but I don't want to lie to you about it. No, it was canceled after the Beta Intersect was destroyed, but it was nearly carried out by Casey. Okay?"

Her jaw drops. They were going to kill him. After everything he's done for them, for the country, they were going to kill him. She closes her mouth and presses her lips together in a tight line. She really hates this business. "How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I've known since a few weeks after that. I didn't tell you because I wasn't sure if you were part of it. I had hoped that you weren't involved, but the way the timing worked out, you could have set me up for it, since it was going to happen while I was waiting for you to come to dinner with me. And knowing that Beckman would have me murdered instead of letting me get my life back was an important piece of information, and keeping that secret gave me a tiny advantage, which I badly need."

That was five months ago. He's been working with them for five months, knowing that Casey might kill him, and thinking that she might kill him, and he's still performed on the missions and kept it all to himself. She knows that he doesn't think that he's brave, and he may not have a poker face that lets him hide the fear he feels like she does, but still, that takes guts. "You thought that I would kill you?"

"I had hoped not, but up to that point you were telling me that we couldn't have a relationship and that the job came first. I honestly didn't know what you would do if your job was to eliminate me. I do have the Intersect in my head, you know. From what I had flashed on, I knew that you wouldn't be the first handler to terminate her asset when he was no longer useful. Truthfully, hearing you and Beckman talk this week didn't really reassure me a lot on that score. I've spent a fair bit of time wondering if this was going to be the end for me. Sometimes I think that having you be the last thing I see in this life would be the greatest gift that I could have. Sometimes it's my most horrible nightmare."

She closes her eyes for a moment. He'd started a relationship with her not knowing if she might kill him one day. For all he knows, he's literally been putting his life on the line to be with her, and here she is, afraid that he'll be upset by Beckman's damn order? She's an idiot. And then he overhears evidence that she is only acting under orders to be with him. It's no wonder he doesn't think he can trust her. She blinks some moisture out of her eyes. "Okay, I understand. That's why you said that you knew that the General would order your death and Casey would do it. You weren't just inferring that, you knew it for a fact. Thanks for explaining to me." She could apologize from now until she started collecting Social Security and it wouldn't make up for what they've put him through, what she's put him through.

"Can you-"

She breaks in. "Why did you start a relationship with me if you thought I might kill you? How could you do that?"

He looks at her seriously. "I decided that either you wouldn't or you would. If you wouldn't kill me, then being with you was the right choice. If you would, then I didn't know you at all, and I was in love with a complete stranger who would murder me with no regrets. If that was true, I wasn't sure that I would care about dying." He clears his throat. "To be fair, I'm so far gone with you that I can't really be rational about this. And whether we dated or not, you could always still kill me easily. I mostly just hoped that I was being paranoid and tried not to think about it much. I'm really good at denial."

She stares back at him. "You really didn't know that I wouldn't kill you?"

"No. I didn't think that you would, but I mostly just went on trust and hope."

She stares at him. Wow. He's so open that she thought she had understood everything about him, but there's even more going on behind those brown eyes than she knew. While he's distracting everyone with his constant chatter about whatever his current craze is, he's hiding some big secrets inside. No wonder things went so wrong on Sunday. She's going to need some more time to think about this, but today isn't about what she needs. "You can ask the rest of your questions, I don't want to waste the time we have here."

"Okay. Can you lie under the influence of truth serum?"

"Yes." **True**

"Have you lied to me under the influence of truth serum?"

Well, that's pretty specific, considering that he has only asked her one question that mattered with truth serum involved, and that was more than a year ago. He must have thought about that a lot. "Yes." **True**

"If it wasn't your job to spend time with me, would you have a relationship with me?"

"Yes," she says emphatically. **True**

"If our jobs didn't get in the way, would you have a relationship with me?"

"Yes," she says even more emphatically. **True**

"Do you think that you could settle for a life with someone ordinary like me?"

"Yes." **True **"But it wouldn't be 'settling' and you are the farthest thing from ordinary, you know. Even the fact that you don't know how exceptional you are isn't ordinary." He gives her a little smile, but she can tell that he doesn't believe her.

He takes a deep breath. "When this mission ends, are you going to leave me?"

She's silent for a moment, but he waits. "I don't know. I can't imagine living without you in my life, but the CIA has been my whole life before this. I know that I don't want to leave here, this is the happiest I can remember being since my mom died when I was little." She looks at him steadily. "A lot would depend on how the mission ended. If you had the Intersect removed, and would be safe without me, maybe. Particularly if you would be safer without me. If you were still in danger, no. If you want to chop it up into finer questions, you can confirm some of that."

"That's okay. It's still a hard question for you. I believe you. Will you betray me?"

"No." **Ambiguous**

She glances at the machine. "I won't do it on purpose, but I'm terrible at relationships, and the intelligence world is very good at manipulating people and situations. I might be tricked into doing it, or do it by mistake. As we've seen this week."

"Okay, after the last year and a half, I believe your qualifiers. Will you deliberately betray me?"

"No." **True**

"Should I trust you?"

Yes, because I'm the only one who wants you to be happy, the only one who cares about you as a person, not just the container for the Intersect, the only one who loves you. "Yes." **True**

"Do you trust me?"

She hesitates. The point of this is to not deceive him, even if he doesn't like the answers. "No." **True**

He looks at her sharply. "That's probably the root of our problem, in addition to the entire intelligence community wanting to either kill us or keep us apart. Do you trust me to not betray my country?"

"Yes!" **True**

"Do you trust me to not cheat on you?"

He's the most loyal person she knows. He'd think that even fantasizing about another woman would be cheating. "Yes!" **True**

"So you think that I'm loyal to my country and faithful to you. Hmm. Do you think that I would betray you?"

He'd never deliberately do anything to hurt her. She knows that the way she knows her right hand, or her favorite knife. "No." **True**

"Do you believe that I love you?"

"I did before this."

"Okay, listen for a second. I believe now that you weren't faking our relationship, and I forgive you for making mistakes in how you handled our really complicated situation, even if I am still upset by some of your choices." He looks at her. "Think about that for a minute. Do you believe that I love you?"

The lump in her stomach that has been her constant companion this week goes away. She closes her eyes for a moment and the tension in her shoulders flows away as she exhales. Oh, my. Is she really going to get a second chance? Thank you, God. She smiles shyly at him. "Yes." **True**

He smiles back. "Okay. An important one. Do you believe that I will always love you?"

Her smile stops, and her friend the lump comes back. The truth. She owes him the truth. "No," she whispers. **True**

He smiles sadly at her. "No, that's sort of what I thought. And that's probably why we are having some of these problems. You can take that stuff off now. I know what I need to know. Thank you for letting me do this."

They're stopping already? He's only asked a few questions. They've got another hour or more before they have to worry about Casey showing up. Is he giving up because of her answer? "Are you sure? Is that all you want to know? I meant what I said about nothing being off limits. We have lots more time."

"Yes, I'm sure. I'd like to know everything about you, but I'm not going to interrogate you like a criminal to find it out. I just needed to know where I stood with you, to know if we were real. I won't take advantage of you for offering me this chance. Maybe someday I'll show you that I'm trustworthy enough for you to share yourself with me because you want to. If I can't do that, maybe I don't deserve to know."

She's speechless for a moment. "Chuck, you're the most trustworthy person I know."

"But you don't trust me. You just said so, and it was confirmed, although I already knew it was true. If you trusted me you would have told me the truth about Mauser. If you trusted me, you would have told me about Beckman's order. You were afraid of how I'd react, so you decided to hide it, for my own good, and because it was easier for you. I'm sure there's more that I don't know about that you were afraid to tell me. You might trust me to be a good person and to not cheat on you, but you don't trust me with the hard stuff, like your past and what you have to do for your job. Would it help you if I got in the chair and let you ask the questions for a while? We could do that."

She just sits in the chair, stunned by him, again. Every single time that she thinks she knows him, he goes and does something like this. She knows how curious he is about her past, she can't believe that he'd walk away from this chance just because he's worried about her feelings. No, that's not right. She can completely believe it, she just hadn't thought of it in those terms before. She knows that she hurt him, again, when she said she didn't trust him. But she can imagine the look in his eyes when he finds about some of the things she's done before she met him. She looks up at him. She wants him more than anything but she's so afraid of losing him. But that's why she hid Beckman's order from him, and look at how that turned out. She almost lost him, and they weren't out of the woods yet. Her mouth goes dry.

"The thing," she croaks out. She clears her throat and tries again. "The thing is, you're a really good person. Before I met you, I didn't know that people like you really existed outside of books or movies. And I have done a lot of terrible things. I don't see how you could still trust me or, or love me, if you knew about them. And someday you are going to find out anyway, and I'm going to see your eyes go cold, like I saw this week…" She starts crying. "And I'll lose you forever, and I don't know how I'll go on without you. I know you deserve someone better, someone normal, but I'm selfish, and I want to be the one who's with you."

He reaches down with his hand and cups her cheek, turning her face up towards his. "Why would you think that I could settle for normal now that I've had a taste of extraordinary?"

She gives him a wet smile for that, and feels her heart unclench a little. She doesn't know why his touch relaxes her so much, but the worst things in her life always seem better when he's touching her.

He reaches down with his other hand and caresses her shoulder. "I love you. Look, I've been playing in your world for a year and a half now, I've seen a lot of missions, met other spies, flashed on a lot of data. While I don't know the particulars of what you have done as part of your work, I have a pretty good idea of the sacrifices that agents make, and that female agents in particular make. I've held you during your nightmares and heard some of the things you cry out in the night. I'm still here, none of that has scared me off. I'm sorry that I didn't trust you enough to take your word for everything this week, but our situation is really hard sometimes, you know, and having you lie to me about things doesn't help me. Knowing that you really love me, and loving you as much as I do, I can't imagine anything that would make me leave you or not love you. Okay? I know your life was hard before the CIA, and even harder after you joined the CIA, but I'd like you to try and have a little faith in me, please? Haven't I earned a little of that? I spent five years mooning over Jill and how I thought she had betrayed me, and I still gave her a second chance. Admittedly, then she really did betray me, but still. Think about that. She isn't a tenth the woman you are, and I gave her a second chance. Do you think I'd do any less for you?

"If we hadn't worked through this today, I probably would have spent the rest of my life thinking about you and missing you, and you would probably have gotten a second chance at some point, too, after I stopped hurting so much. If you had wanted it. My affections don't wander as easily as you seem to think they do."

She captures his hand with hers and presses it firmly against her face. She sniffles a few times and looks back at him. "You've given me every reason in the world to trust you, but I'm still afraid of what you'll think of me. I'm proud of the things that I've accomplished in my career, but I'm not proud of some of the things that I've had to do to accomplish them. I know it's not reasonable, but I can't help the way that I feel. Keeping secrets has kept me safe up until now, and it's hard to let that go."

He kneels down next to her and hugs her to him. He whispers in her ear. "I won't say that I understand what you are going through. But I will say that I love you, and that I don't think that your secrets are going to scare me away. The thing is, if you expect us to not work out, we are probably not going to stay together. Making any relationship work is hard, and with our special circumstances, it is going to be even harder. If you are expecting us to break up, we probably will. I think that would be a shame, because I think we are so great together, and we could be even better. After being with you, I can't even imagine being happy with anyone else. "

She hugs him back as hard as she can and sniffles into his shirt. "You fell in love with Sarah Walker, not everyone I was before I met you. I'm afraid you won't love me when you really know me."

He snorts a little. "And I'm afraid that one day you will realize that you could do so much better than me and leave me to find someone who deserves you or that you will get bored with me and my quiet life and leave me to go back to the exciting life of a spy. So now you know two more of my very few secrets. We are both nervous about our future together, which makes us like a whole lot of other people in the world who are dating and working out their relationships. The question is, what are we going to do about it?"

She pulls back. "Chuck, I don't think there is anyone better than you, and the exciting life of a spy is really overrated. It's a lot of dull time working in boring cover jobs or doing surveillance when nothing happens, punctuated by having to do horrible or dangerous things to get the mission done. Yeah, there are fun parts, and knowing that you are helping to keep the country safe is a great feeling, but it is much less exciting than you think it is. And it's so lonely. Casey may complain about this duty, but he wants to do more Special Forces kind of stuff. This has been way better than most of my normal assignments, where I might spend three months setting up a cover before anything real happens. Except for the Weinerlicious, that part wasn't so good. Smelling like sausage all the time sucked."

He gives her a little smile, but he doesn't look convinced. "Thank you for trying to make me feel better, but methinks the lady doth protest too much. I've seen your face after an exciting mission."

She growls at him. "Am I this annoying when I don't listen to you? 'Cuz you are really irritating me." She glares at him for a moment. "Get back over there." She jerks her head towards the lie detector.

He stands back up slowly and moves over to the lie detector.

"Ask me if I think that you're gorgeous."

He blushes a little, but asks, "Do you think that I'm gorgeous?"

"Yes." **True** "Ask me if I have ever enjoyed another lover more than you?"

He clears his throat. "Have you ever enjoyed another lover more than me?"

"No." **True** "Ask me if I think there is any guy better than you."

"Do you think there is any guy better than me?"

"No." **True** "Ask me if I want to go back to being a spy without working with you."

"Do you want to go back to being a spy without working with me?"

"No." **True** "There, now do you believe me?"

He gives her a medium wattage smile. "Yes, although I am having problems reconciling your answers with a lifetime of experience with other women."

"Well, what do their opinions matter? Other than Ellie, I'm the only woman whose opinion should matter to you. Listen to me, forget about any other foolish women you've run across, it's their loss. Particularly forget about Lou."

That surprises a grin out of him. "You make a good point." He clears his throat. "You are doing a good job of reassuring me, for which I thank you, because after this week I needed some reassuring. But what about you? Can you think of anything that would make you feel better about us? I meant what I said before. We have so many things going against us, if we don't trust each other, I don't know how we'll make it. Can I do anything to change your mind?" He looks down. "It breaks my heart that you don't trust me enough to let me know you better. Is there anything I can do to convince you that you might be wrong about me?"

"I'm afraid."

"I know and I can completely empathize with that fear, but I am really afraid that it is going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy if we don't do anything about it. If you think that us spending more time together will fix this, that's fine, but if not, then I'm afraid of leaving the situation this way for too much longer. Does that make any sense to you?"

She nods her head. "I know that I'm not being rational, and I know that it's effecting my judgment. You're right, I should have told you about Beckman's order, but I was afraid to, and I hurt you so much because of that. I'm so, so sorry. I heard you crying that first night and you never deserved to feel like that."

"Yeah, that wasn't one of the best nights in my life." He gives her a little smile. "It's okay, I'll get over it, with a little time and your help. I'm tougher than I look, at least in some ways. Are there any other secret orders that I should know about?"

She shakes her head. "That's the only one that really effects us. I have lots of contingency orders, but none of them would surprise you. You know, what to do if Beckman is killed, or Casey is turned, that kind of thing."

"Well, that's good. I'd prefer to be unsurprised for a little while, if you can manage it. I need to let some things scab over and heal a little." He sighs. "Our situation is more complicated than most people's. It makes sense that our mistakes are going to be even worse than most people's, too."

She thinks about that for a few seconds. He's usually right about them. If he thinks this is going to break them up, he's probably right. She can't let that happen. She takes a deep breath. "I know that you're still upset with me, but will you come back to our bed and hold me tonight, please?"

He smiles reassuringly at her. "If you'll have me, yes. There's no place I'd rather be."

"If you'll hold me tonight, I'll tell you one of the things that I'm afraid of you knowing in the morning. I need to have a night with you before I can do that. If you're going to push me away, I'd rather you do it for what I've actually done, not over another misunderstanding."

"There's the kick-ass ninja girl that I love."

"I'm not going to hurt you again with something that I was too afraid to tell you. I'm probably going to hurt you again, but it's not going to be from that."

She takes the sensors off, stands up and walks over to him. He opens his arms and she wraps her arms around his waist and lays her head against his chest. She stands there long enough to listen to his heart beat half a dozen times, then pulls back to look at him. "I'm a really good spy, Chuck, but I'm a really bad girlfriend. I don't know if I can make this work."

He pulls her close again and whispers in her ear. "This isn't something you have to be perfect at and it's okay to make mistakes. You just have to try, and you do get points for effort. Okay?"

She nods.

"I know that this hard for you but you aren't alone in this. I'm there for you when it's hard, even when I'm the problem. There's a relationship secret that you might not know: **You** don't have to make this work, **we** have to make it work."

She hugs him hard, feeling his warmth all around her, listening to the slow beat of his heart. The whirling in her head stops and her mind clears. She pulls back a little and looks him in the eye. Is it that simple? "Really?"

He laughs at her, but it's kind laughter. "Really. And we are so good together, Sarah, what can't we do together?"

He's right, she knows it. She keeps looking him in the eye and answers him with complete certainty. "Nothing. There's nothing we can't do if we both try."

"Exactly. If we both remember that, it will all turn out fine, no matter what the world throws at us."

She gives him a slow smile. "How did you get to be so smart? Is this an Intersect thing?"

He smiles back. "No, this is something that Ellie and I learned together when we were younger, but it's true for you and me, too."

"You're still pretty smart. I'm sorry that I'm such a slow student."

"I'm sorry that I'm such a poor teacher. I guess we'll have to schedule some review classes."

"Do you think I might be able to do some extra-credit assignments to bring up my grade?" She looks up through her eyelashes at him, and bats them extravagantly.

Chuck tries to play it straight. "Miss Walker, if you think that you are going to influence my evaluation by your actions..." He skids to a stop as she leans forward and starts to blow softly in one of his ears. "Then you're probably right."

She traces the outside of that ear with the tip of her tongue, then whispers, "If you'll call in sick to work, I promise to take you home and take very good care of you. After I'm done taking care of you, we can talk about some of the things that have been scaring me. And then maybe you can take care of me for a while. How does that sound?"

"Like a really, really good idea."

"Why don't you make that call, then we can go home together. No more secrets between us."

"No more secrets."

_A/N. And I think that I'll wrap it up there for now. Went full-frontal Charah in the end, because I just can't help myself, despite my weakness for excessively angsty melodrama. I wasn't super thrilled with the ending, but, after five weeks of staring at this, I decided that I wasn't a good enough writer to make it any better right now, and that I owed you guys some closure. Regarding the killing questions, I'm assuming that Chuck learned about the termination order from the Intersect update that Bryce slipped him at the end of "Chuck Versus the Break-Up" and has been a little less innocent ever since. Thanks for reading._


End file.
